I didn’t get out of the way in time. The corner hit my shoulder, sending shooting pain down my arm. Undeterred, or maybe unwilling to show that the door had fought back, I gave it a kick before stomping on it.
“There,” I said, wiping sweat from my face. “I hope that was expensive.”
“It was. Very. Shall I charge it to Mr. Durant?”
“No. Charge it to the board, and blame it on Darius. From me.” I waltzed out, knowing I would not look cool after that, but not caring. There was something about kicking in doors that was intensely gratifying. Like meditation.
“Well, I guess the reigning king will retain his throne unchallenged,” Garret said with a satisfied smirk, still leaning against his cube wall.
“Were you fired?” Clarissa asked with sorrowful eyes.
“Of course she was fired. That’s five red cards. Five.” Garret shook his head and pinned me with gloating eyes. “You should’ve been fired after three. Law enforcement isn’t the place for you. Leave this job to the heroes.”
“Man, you suck,” I said, passing him by. I didn’t have the strength to punch him. That door had taken a lot out of me.
I stepped into my cube and looked around. I’d barely used the now-dusty computer, much to the annoyance of the rest of the office. A few pens stood in the holder, and a blurry picture of a sasquatch was pinned to the gray wall of the cube. A joke, because Clarissa had said I needed some personal artifacts. I had nothing to take out of there.
“Well, it was boring while it lasted.” I shrugged and turned away. “Good luck, everyone. I guess you’ll see me if a mark you can’t handle comes through.”
“Yeah, right, like that will happen.” Garret snorted in disdain.
“Dude, that was my job before this, remember? It did happen. A lot.” I made a fast movement toward him. He flinched, fear crossing his face, before he realized I was just playing. He straightened up with a glower. Someone snickered.
It was definitely the small things.
“Check ya later.” I threw up a peace sign on my way out.
Now what?
Chapter Eight
Being that it was daylight, Darius was sleeping. I’d have to wait until nightfall to kick his ass, and I had plans that night, assuming J.M. hadn’t been frightened off. Given the way Darius had oozed menace last night, I wouldn’t blame the poor detective for running the other way. Another reason why I was going to teach that elder vamp a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.
With nothing else to do, I figured I might as well practice my special brand of magic. My mage friend Callie was convinced that I needed to use it as much as possible to get my power to blossom. Whether that was true or not—it could be a matter of growing into the power, like the fae did—I figured it couldn’t hurt to keep working at it.
I exchanged my tank top for a leather halter and put a leather cap over my head. Dizzy was working on a fireproof spell for my hair, but so far, it wasn’t coming along well. He now sported burns ninety percent of the time.
At least Callie was able to magically restore eyebrows and hair. Speaking of which, I needed to pay her a visit before my dinner tonight, assuming it was on, to get my eyebrows fixed.
I stepped onto my back porch and closed the door tightly behind me. I didn’t want any air conditioning leaking out.
I plucked one of Dizzy’s shielding spells out of my pouch, pinched the casing, and threw it at the back of my yard. I did another and threw it at the right side. After fishing around for one more like it, I realized that was it. I had two. That meant the people on the left side of my house would both be able to hear and see me.
I leaned over the side of my deck to see if Mikey was out on his back porch. Nope, all clear, which made sense in this heat. Looking down the row of houses, I didn’t see anyone out. Again, in midday and in this heat, that stood to reason.
I wiped sweat from my brow. It was annoying that I could withstand fire, but weather still affected me. Of all the injustices in the world…
Taking a deep breath, I let my power burn through my body as I slowly moved my hand through the air. Fire sprang up on the stone ground, spreading in the pattern I willed it to take, as quickly as I willed it to happen. This part of my power was second nature. Easy.
I feathered the flame higher, changing its heat and intensity, keeping it away from the wooden fences. The color shifted between yellow, orange, red, and blue. Next, I influenced different places in the yard to burn at different temperatures. This was a bit harder.
Sweat was dripping down my forehead from the strain as I created revolving fireballs. Orbs of blue, orange, and red moved around the yard like a school solar system. I blinked my eyes against a droplet of sweat. If only the yard was air-conditioned.
I clenched my fists. The orbs of fire blinked out and the flames dwindled. Taking a deep breath, I focused on the rocks in the middle of my yard. Ranging in size from small to half my height, they represented the newest power I’d tapped into. Telekinesis. Lifting things with my mind.
This ability had come as a surprise. I’d discovered it while knee deep in whiskey one night, bored as hell in my burned-out living room (before Darius fixed it up), making orbs circle each other like fairy lights. I’d felt a hankering for another sip of whiskey, but my glass was across the room. Clearly a ghost must have moved it, since I couldn’t remember putting it there. Deciding I didn’t much care about ghosts—they were easy enough for experienced mages to banish—I made a move to get up and get it. But the orbs flared, and suddenly there came my glass, floating through the air.
It was then I realized two things. I could move things with my power, so the myth about demons doing that while in a human host was probably true, and also, I did actually care about ghosts. A great deal. Because at first I didn’t realize I was moving the glass, and it scared the holy bejeebus out of me. I tore out of the living room for my sword, and the orbs winked out and the glass dropped, shattering across the floor.
At the time, I was more relieved I didn’t have a ghost than excited I could move stuff with my drunken mind.
From then, it had been on. I had a new thing to practice.
Turned out, making things move with my mind was way harder than making an orb of fire.
In the bright sunlight, I stood on my deck, staring at the smallest rock and keeping my hands at my sides. Pulling on my power, I imagined lifting the rock. It merely wobbled on the ground.
I pulled harder, feeling a strange numbing at the base of my stomach. The rock rose slowly into the air until it was three feet or so off the ground. Still focused, legs trembling, I moved it minimally before trying a larger one. That done, though not as successfully, I tried the next biggest, and then the next, until I was straining with the last and heaviest of the rocks.
The cold in my gut surged, pushing at my fire. I furrowed my brow as the biggest rock wobbled, an improvement on my last practice. The way my magic was acting, however, felt like a step backward. The fire in the yard, which had sprung up during my exercise with the first rock, had dwindled to nearly nothing.
I wiped my forehead and relaxed. All activity in my backyard stopped.
Though a little off balance from the feeling in my gut, I hadn’t yet practiced levitation, and I steeled myself to do so. I didn’t understand that new cold sensation, but I was confident my fire could fight it.
Maybe hopeful was a better word than confident.
Determination setting in, I shook out my arms and rolled my shoulders. I wasn’t far from using a boom box to blast “Eye of the Tiger.”
The thick air hung heavy around me. Distantly, a dog barked. Somewhere, a rattling, buzzing air conditioner clicked on.
Here we go.
Fire raged through me as I amped up my power to the red line. My heart thumped in my chest, feeding off the surge in adrenaline. Rushing sounded in my ears.
Slowly, I lifted my hands like Magneto in X-Men. Like Magneto, my feet lost connection with the wood under them, and I rose into the air. Heat rolled over my body, sweet agony. A foot off the ground, and I was still in my comfort bubble. I pushed a little harder and lifted a little higher. Two feet now. Three. The burn of using this much power ate through the pleasure of it.
Now for the hard part. Even drunk and totally committed, I had a hard time with this one.
Biting my lip, focusing with everything I had, I flexed my body and willed myself forward.
My muscles started to shake. I could barely hear through the pressure in my ears. It felt like there were weights on my shoulders, holding me down. Keeping me immobile.
Breathing heavily, fists clenched, I willed myself forward again. It felt like I was trying to move through a wall.
Gritting my teeth now, determined to make some sort of headway, I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath, and gave it everything I had.
Air wafted against my face. At first I thought I’d gasped or exhaled, but I belatedly realized I wasn’t breathing at all. I’d moved forward!
Drenched in sweat, tremors running through my legs and arms, I tried again. And lurched again. It was then I noticed that the numbness now pulsed inside me, dull and cold, throbbing up my esophagus. Strangely hollow, too, like an echo through a vast, empty chamber.
“What in the holy fuck?” I heard.
My eyes snapped open and everything came crashing down. Rocks I hadn’t realized I’d lifted hit the ground. Orbs of fire fell, winking out as they did so. Flame, which had been crawling across my backyard, pulsing in all colors, sank until it extinguished. I followed, hitting the wooden steps of my porch and rolling to the bottom, thunking my head against the hard stone. Good thing my noggin was hard.